Days to Remember: The British Empire in the Great WarBuchan, John
History
Days to Remember: The British Empire in the Great War
Buchan, John
World War, 1914-1918
In reporting this action Captain Campbell brought specially to notice
the extreme bravery of Lieutenant Bonner, who received the Victoria
Cross, and the 4-inch gun’s crew, to whom the same honour was given.
"Lieutenant Bonner, having been blown out of his control by the first
explosion, crawled into the gun hatch with the crew. They there
remained at their posts with a fire raging in the poop below, and the
deck getting red hot. One man tore up his shirt to give pieces to the
gun’s crew to stop the fumes getting into their throats; others lifted
the boxes of cordite off the deck to keep it from exploding; and all the
time they knew that they must be blown up, as the secondary supply and
magazine was immediately below. They told me afterwards that
communication with the main control was cut off, and although they knew
they would be blown up, they also knew that they would spoil the show if
they moved, so they remained until actually blown up with their gun.
Then when, as wounded men, they were ordered to remain quiet in various
places during the second action, they had to lie there unattended and
bleeding, with explosions continually going an aboard, and splinters
from the enemy’s shell-fire penetrating their quarters. Lieutenant
Bonner, himself wounded, did what he could for two who were with him in
the wardroom. When I visited them after the action they thought little
of their wounds, but only expressed their disgust that the enemy had not
been sunk. Surely such bravery is hard to equal."
It may be added that such bravery is still harder to defeat. The
discipline and devotion which the genius of this commander had imparted
to his ship’s company, when added to the long-descended seamanship and
enterprise of our Service, proved too much for the unscrupulous courage
and mechanical skill of the enemy. It cannot be doubted that in any
imaginable war at sea the same qualities would produce the same result;
for the mystery, after all, lay rather in the men than in the ships.
*CHAPTER XXV.*
*JUTLAND.*
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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